Member

“I have always believed in giving people power and control over their lives: control over the public services they use and how they access childcare, benefits and housing support; control over their data, and who sees it; and control over the choices they make to rent or buy a home, apply for a job, open a bank account, and much more besides. In the age of the smartphone, we can take this control quite literally into our own hands, but too often it feels like we are at the mercy of a system that does not work for us as well as it should. It is one with endless form filling and bureaucracy just for people to prove who they are, and one where they may need their passport to apply for a job, their national insurance number to pay tax, and their driving licence to buy a pint or a glass of wine—if they are lucky enough to be asked. Most frustratingly of all, they may have to rummage around in a drawer looking for an old electricity bill just to open a bank account, join the library or enrol their children in school. It is time to fix this: to put power back in people’s hands; to get more out of our public services; and to bring the UK into the modern age.